Ask players what their favorite mode is in EA’s revitalized College Football series, and most will tell you it’s Dynasty or Road To Glory, which give players control of an entire school football program or a created player, respectively. Unlike Ultimate Team, EA’s long-standing pay-to-win mode seen in all of its sports games, these modes have largely been untouched by microtransactions. But College Football 27 has crossed a line, according to many players who have voiced their frustrations online.
Dynasty and Road To Glory now each allow you to pay to instantly improve your coach or athlete, rather than improve them over time through play. To hit the coach level cap of 100, players would need to spend 12,000 points, which equates to $100 if bought in bulk. The early-access Ultimate Edition of the game includes 4,600 points, meaning even the most expensive version of CFB 27 seems designed to ask players to fork over more money or else trudge through a remarkable grind, as one player on Twitter explained. You can see that breakdown below.
Infusing modes like these with optional microtransactions isn’t unheard of. It’s an annual pain point in my NBA 2K reviews and regularly annoys that community, too. Even Madden has begun letting players pay to upgrade their “Superstar,” but CFB 27 takes this a step further by significantly changing the series’ customizable XP settings. In the last two College Football games, players could adjust XP sliders for their coach or player to level up faster. This was a welcome touch, since some players don’t want to play the mode for many seasons. Some players get their fill after just one or a few seasons, but still want to experience the full coach progression arc in that span.
But tied to these new pay-to-level options in Dynasty and Road To Glory is the glaring absence of these options. Players can no longer tweak settings to level up “faster” or “fastest”; the speediest option is now the default in both modes, while slower options still exist in Dynasty.
You’d have to be pretty naive to think these changes happening together are a coincidence. It seems in order to drive more in-game purchases, EA has slowed progression in CFB’s most beloved modes, and players are responding as you’d expect.
On Twitter, a popular CFB streamer is mobilizing players to boycott the in-game pay-to-level options using the hashtag #CFBPlayDontPay. At the time of writing this article, the hashtag is trending at #8 on the website. Meanwhile, on Reddit, some players are promising to skip the game because this new in-game-purchase scheme has rubbed them the wrong way.
GameSpot has reached out to EA for comment, and I’ll update this article if or when the company responds. With the game not even officially out yet–the basic version launches on Thursday–it seems likely the team will address the noise soon.
